ASMI rebounds, telecoms carriers more or less flat, Logitech happier

ASM International has seen revenues rebound in its second quarter, profiting from strong demand in the chip market and for new process technologies. The Dutch company witnessed its net sales grow 153 percent from €119.5 million last year to €302.4 million this year. Sales rose 38 percent compared to the first quarter, in which ASMI had sales worth €219.1 million.

The company’s net profit increased to €47.5 million, after a loss of €55.7 million in the same period of last year. On top of it all, ASMI’s order backlog for machines which make chips grew 355 percent year over year, hitting €556.6 million after a rather pale €122.4 million one year ago. New orders amounted to €526.1 million, an increase of 238 percent.

“Our front-end business returned to profitability, we reached the cost reduction targets as set out in our global restructuring program Perform!, and we experienced an acceleration of orders compared to prior quarters. In back-end, revenues, orders, and profits once again set quarterly records for our assembly and packaging operations serving the semiconductor and LED markets”, commented Chuck del Prado, ASMI’s CEO.

Spanish carrier Telefonica managed to grow revenues by nine percent year over year in the second quarter, from €13.87 billion to €15.12 billion. Its net profit increased from €1.83 to €2.12 billion, or by 15.9 percent. Telefonica had 278 million customers worldwide at the end of the quarter, 5.2 percent more than in the same period of last year.

In the first half year, revenues decreased 4.5 percent in Spain, falling from €9.76 billion to €9.32 billion. However, growth of 10.2 percent in Latin America and 10.8 percent in Europe more than offset the slight decline in the former home market.

Telefonica’s mobile business O2 improved in Germany and the UK, however it experienced trouble in Ireland and the Czech Republic. Revenues for O2 UK grew 9.2 percent from €1.63 billion to €1.78 billion in the second quarter. Thanks to including HanseNet on paper, O2 Germany managed to increase its revenues by 33.5 percent, from €896 million to €1.2 billion. Revenues stayed flat at €549 billion in the Czech Republic and decreased by 7.9 percent in troubled Ireland, falling from €226 million to €208 million.

Rival carrier France Telecom also unveiled its earnings today, stating revenues worth €22.14 billion, 2.2 percent less than last or, if one were to discount regulatory effects, flat. Consolidated net income after tax grew from €2.76 billion to €3.96 billion year-over-year in the first six months of 2010, whereas the group share of net income (i.e. what the shareholders get) was €3.73 billion, compared to €2.6 billion last year.

France Telecom had to admit selling out to T-Mobile to create the “Everything Everywhere” joint venture was the reason for the rise in profit. The carrier managed to grow its customer base 3.8 percent, to 182 million.

As for computer paraphernalia, Swiss company Logitech saw its sales rise by 47 percent in its fiscal first quarter, hiking upwards from $326 million to $479 million. Logitech’s net profit amounted to $20 million, after a loss of $37 million one year ago.

Strong demand has led the company to raise its expectations. Despite the fact the second quarter of its fiscal year has just begun, Logitech believes sales will be in the range of $2.3 billion to $2.35 billion, after previously expecting sales worth $2.3 billion.